Mostly About Organized Crime

05/13/2011

Nine reputed Gambino mobsters were sentenced on Wednesday and Thursday to light prison terms ranging from 18 months to 100 months after variously pleading guilty to the usual mob rackets such as sex trafficking, drug distribution, and gambling, loansharking and extortion as reported by Courthouse News Service. The nine defendants were among the fourteen indicted in April 2010. The other five defendants, including reputed boss Dan Marino, previously have been sentenced. Marino was sentenced last January to five years in prison after pleading guilty to green lighting a 1998 hit on his Bonanno associate nephew Frank Hydell whom mobsters feared was cooperating with the feds. If these boys were a black crew from the Crips or Bloods would the sentences have been as lenient?

01/10/2011

Reputed Gambino soldier Thomas Orefice and his alleged top dog Dominick Difiore pleaded guilty this afternoon as reported by Bruce Golding for the New York Post: Orefice pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge involving extortion, loansharking and gambling, and Difiore pleaded guilty to extortion conspiracy and drug trafficking charges. Orefice and Difiore were among the fourteen defendants indicted on various charges last April, and they were the last two to reach plea deals.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have declined to bring charges against Orefice's defense lawyer Seth Ginsburg after a bag of marijuana was discovered in his brief case last October while entering the Metropolitan Correctional Center to visit his client as reported by Scott Shifrel for the Daily News: "Ginsberg blamed it all on his brother, who he told authorities had borrowed the bag - and left the narcotics in it."

Longtime soldier Onofrio "Noel" Modica, 46, who the feds claim tried to tamper with the jury during John "Dapper Don" Gotti's 1992 Brooklyn trial, was approached by two federal agents last week as he was walking to his physical therapist, his lawyer said today. "This is preposterous," said Modica's lawyer Matthew Mari outside Manhattan federal court. "Modica is not in the mob. He knows a lot people in the mob." Mari said the agents asked for his cooperation if he didn't want to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Although Modica may not want to play for Team America, Golding reports "the feds said they have three cooperating witnesses -- who were not identified by name -- and nearly 200 hours of taped conversations that were obtained when members wore wires."

The feds also accuse Modica of the 1987 double murder of James DiGuglielmo and Richard Sbarra which resulted from an alleged drug related dispute between Modica and DiGuglielmo. According to the feds "Modica drove his motorcycle with a shooter riding on the back to a crowded parking lot where the shooter opened fire" killing both DiGiglielmo and Sbarra who was an innocent bystander.

04/20/2010

In New York City the feds have indicted 14 reputed Gambino crime family members and associates on a host of "charges including racketeering, murder, sex trafficking, sex trafficking of a minor, jury tampering, extortion, assault, narcotics trafficking, wire fraud, loansharking, and illegal gambling" according to a press release by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

The defendants include reputed boss Daniel Marino who allegedly has "over 200 fully-inducted or 'made' mafia members under his command, as well as hundreds of associates who commit crimes with and for the mafia." The others charged are reputed Gambino soldiers Thomas Orefice and Onofrio Modica who each allegedly supervised crews that include defendants Dominick DiFiore, Anthony Manzella, Michael Scotto, Michael Scarpaci, Thomas Scarpaci, David Eisler and Salvatore Borgia. The indictment also charges Steve Maiurro, Keith Dellitalia, Suzanne Porcelli and Anthony Vecchione with committing "crimes with and for the Gambino Family."

Marino is charged with the 1998 murder of his Bonanno associate nephew Frank Hydell and the 1989 murder of Gambino soldier Thomas Spinelli which were allegedly motivated by fears that the victims were spilling family secrets. Modica is charged for the 1987 double murder of James DiGuglielmo and Richard Sbarra which resulted from an alleged drug related dispute between Modica and DiGuglielmo, and according to the feds "Modica drove his motorcycle with a shooter riding on the back to a crowded parking lot where the shooter opened fire" killing both DiGiglielmo and Sbarra who was an innocent bystander.

The indictment also charges various defendants with operating a teenage prostitution ring through Craigslist which sold girls between 15- and 19-years old; extorting businesses and individuals within the construction, home heating oil and financial services industries; running a drug ring which sold cocaine, oxycontin and marijuana; plotting to tamper with the jury in the 1992 racketeering trial against Gambino boss John Gotti; and defrauding NYC restaurants through inflated invoices from Manzella's meat company with kickbacks to the kitchen chefs.

He personally looked over the 15-year-old, a 10th-grade runaway, and consented for his goons to sell her for sex, prosecutors charge. "[She] looked much younger," a law enforcement source said. "Like she wasn't old enough to be even a Girl Scout, like she still played with dolls." Prosecutors say Orefice advertised the girls, ranging in age from 15 to 19, on craigslist with ads that included the phone number of Gambino madam Suzanne Porcelli. Porcelli set up the appointments, and Orefice's crew members drove the women to appointments in New York and New Jersey, waited for them and took half their $200-per-session payment, prosecutors say. Wiseguy Anthony Manzella was allegedly caught on tape giving one frightened girl advice on how to deal with a john who insisted on a sex act she didn't want to perform. As a sideline, Orefice made these same women available to gamblers who played poker at his illegal, high-stakes games, prosecutors charge. When they serviced the poker players, the fee went into the pot, prosecutors said.